NY judge limits amount World Trade Center firm can claim it lost in Sept. 11 attacks

Source: strib

A federal judge says a financial firm that lost more than 650 employees in the Sept. 11 attacks must reduce its demands that an airline pay it nearly $1 billion.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein made the ruling regarding Cantor Fitzgerald on Wednesday. The company last year estimated it suffered $1 billion in lost profits because of the deaths of two-thirds of its work force at the World Trade Center.

The judge says Cantor Fitzgerald cannot base its estimates on lost profits resulting from employees who died.



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for lost income, the income is based on what the dead person might have earned in his or her lifetime.

The notion that Cantor Fitzgerald is entitled to some lifetime estimate of employee earnings is not quite comparable to the support that a bereaved spouse might have otherwise received.

With the exception of key personnel, employee earnings are not irreplaceable.

While a spouse is irreplaceable, an employee typically is.

You just had to know that the experience of "deep human emotion" was the next developmental milestone of corporate "personhood". Blech! :eyes:

first place.

95% of the lawyers give the other 5% a bad name.

There are always lawyers on the other side, too.

So, figure, half of all lawyers are okay, because they are opposing the other half.

Also, in the vast majority of all lawsuits, the "parties" themselves are stand-ins for their insurers.

What you have here is not a dispute between Cantor Fitzgerald and an airline.

What you have here is a dispute between Cantor Fitzergerald's insurance company and the airline's insurance company.

It's like arguing over the tab after dinner.

is inadmissable.

Think of it like the "Gamesters of Triskelion" episode from the original Star Trek series.

If the jury got wind of the fact that they are essentially settling a bet between two insurance companies, then that would ruin the match.

Oddly enough, it is the insurance companies which often decry "oddball legal claims", when in fact a fair number of those oddball claims are pursued by insurance companies which are trying to stick it to other insurance companies.

I was on a jury once where the claim was brought by an woman claiming that certain surgeries related to an auto accident, and her auto insurance company was claiming that the surgeries did not arise from the accident injuries.

During deliberations, a couple of the jurors said, "But she works at XYZ Co. and they have great medical coverage. Why wasn't she covered anyway?"

I didn't know whether to bite my tongue or to explain that the reason she was there was simply as a consequence of her health insurance company looking to get the payment out of her auto insurance company, and the plaintiff herself probably didn't care one way or another who ended up paying whom.

and set their rules on what could and could not be brought on planes at the time. That is why they can be sued. I don't think the government bought off the businesses to keep them from suing but that is what they did with some families. (Have no clue on the businesses but seems a no on Cantor.) There were a few families that did not take money from the government for the deaths of their spouses, siblings, parents or children. They chose to taken their chances and sue the airlines. Those families won in court.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/families-of-those-killed-on-ground-settle-911-litigation-against-airlines-and-security-companies-58348012.html

funny how that is, huh?